House In Highgate, London
I was commissioned to work on this four storey house by one of my existing clients who’s pregnant daughter and family (including a large dog) were moving back to the UK after spending several years abroad. At the time I was living in Singapore, my client was in Florida, his daughter was in Australia and we employed a project manager in the UK to oversee the building work. There was a tight deadline because the family was expecting another baby, so the aim was to complete the whole project by the time the baby was born. The house was built in the seventies with a very drab and dated interior, which was in need of a lot of work. We completely reconfigured the ground and first floor to create a more modern and useable environment to suit all their living requirements. On the ground floor, the entrance hall was enlarged to make a lighter more inviting space. The study size was reduced at one end to house a utility room accessed from the garage and enlarged at the other end by knocking through into an exterior light well below the back garden, creating a glass roof / walkway above. The first floor originally included a separate kitchen, dining room, utility and living room all entered from a small landing. Here we knocked down all the walls to create an open plan kitchen/ dining/ living room accessed from a enlarged landing through a large full height sliding door.
On the second and third floors, the original room configurations were kept pretty much as existing; apart from making all the doors full height and adding a walk-in wardrobe within the master bedroom.
In spite of the large amount of structural work required on the house and the limited time available for construction, the contractor finished the job in four months, which was one day before the deadline and to a high standard as well.
